


Spider Silk

by somegunemojis



Series: Tender Mercies [29]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Cuddling, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26287537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somegunemojis/pseuds/somegunemojis
Summary: They're hanging on by a thread. Luckily, they seem to have a pretty good grip on it.
Relationships: Bettino Tahan/Ivan Rahal
Series: Tender Mercies [29]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1893175





	Spider Silk

March, 2019 -- VR, Italia

It’s pouring down rain on a Friday night. 

Bettino is convalescing, and really so is Ihab-- the injuries they’re fighting are no joke. Bettino had been nagging him so much about being careful of his bruised and broken ribs, _no strenuous activity, Rahal, really. Do you want a punctured lung?_ and Ihab had turned it back on him, with a snapped, _and what about your leg, hm? Weren't you stabbed?_ and a cold, logical: _I wouldn’t have to work so hard to get up the stairs at your apartment if we just stayed at my place. I have a fucking elevator._

Well, whatever. 

They’d had a warm meal. Bettino can’t really think back to what it was, half asleep here on Ihab’s couch with his injured leg propped up on a couple of pillows on the coffee table, and the taller man’s head resting squarely on his other thigh. Ihab is flat on his back, face half-turned towards the television, where Our Planet plays at a volume almost too low to hear even in the silence of his apartment. He’s half asleep, hardly paying attention at all. 

Bettino’s attention, for once, is firmly on Ihab. His left hand is settled palm-down right over the younger man's heart, the slow and steady beat of something supposedly dead and cold and the almost stilted way he breathes through the pain of his broken ribs doing well as signs of life, when the man is so otherwise still. 

His other hand, he’s found, can’t quite stay away from the silken strands of his hair. It’s fascinatingly soft, and every time his blunt nails scrape along Ihab’s scalp, he watches his lips twitch into something that’s almost a smile, and he can see his arms break out in goosebumps. He doesn’t want to overdo it, to drag Ihab back into full awareness, but he can’t quite get over how deliciously reactive he is to the contact. When his thumb trails over the shell of his ear, Ihab’s eyes flicker open almost lazily, something like a dazed grin on his face. Bettino thinks, briefly, that he looks kind of like a cat with too much catnip, and has to bite back a snort. Then, he thinks, if the angle wasn’t so weird, and he wasn’t likely to get an awful crick in his neck, he might just lean down there and kiss him, to see how his smile tastes.


End file.
